"US to build £8bn super base on Pacific island of Guam The US is building an £8 billion super military base on the Pacific island of Guam in an attempt to contain China's military build-up.

A B-1B Lancer takes off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam in 2003

The expansion will include a dock for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a missile defence system, live-fire training sites and the expansion of the island's airbase. It will be the largest investment in a military base in the western Pacific since the Second World War, and the biggest spend on naval infrastructure in decades.

However, Guam residents fear the build-up could hurt their ecosystem and tourism-dependent economy.

Estimates suggest that the island's population will rise by almost 50 per cent from its current 173,000 at the peak of construction. It will eventually house 19,000 Marines who will be relocated from the Japanese island of Okinawa, where the US force has become unpopular.

...

Local residents' concerns, however, have been sidelined by the US-China strategic competition. China has significantly expanded its fleet during the past decade, seeking to deter the US from intervening militarily in any future conflict over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, and to project power across disputed territories in the gas and oil-rich South China Sea.

Beijing's naval build-up is also intended secure the sea lanes from the Middle East, from where China will import an estimated 70-80 per cent of its oil needs by 2035 supplies it fears US could choke in the event of a conflict.

couldn’t we work something out with the philippines or another neighboring country so that we have more than one base in the region? I would imagine that the reason for this is that Okinawa is going to soon be given back to the locals and so we will need a place for all the forward-deployed forces.

They do that and Trident warheads will impact on the Tienanmen Sq and elsewhere in the Peoples Republic.

If you seriously think that you need to do a quick study of history. In the 1950s we said that if a communist army attacked us we would nuke them. Then the Chinese came across the Yalu and what do ya know, no nukes. OK that was some foreign country on the other side of the world. But if anyone ever attacked New York they would instantly get nuked into oblivion. Then there was this Tuesday in September, and what do ya know, no nukes.

If the Chi-Coms hit Guam with a conventional attack there is no way Obama, or likely any other president, is going to go nuclear. He might send in some cruise missiles against Chinese bases. And assuming they haven't all been decommissioned a couple of carrier battle groups lose in the Indian Ocean could play havoc with China's merchant fleet. But we would not go nuclear unless the other guy went their first. Especially if the attack was in a territory rather than in the US proper.

29
posted on 10/25/2010 4:35:36 PM PDT
by GonzoGOP
(There are millions of paranoid people in the world and they are all out to get me.)

Respectfully disagree. Hawaii was a territory and a major base, and when the attack came in 1941 we declared war.

We would see an attack coming days or weeks in advance
via ‘national technical means’ as well as by way of human intelligence. The Chinese would be invited to go home or
suffer consequences, even Obamao would be forced to respond or be yanked from office.

"It is going to be hard to defend that base if the Chinese decide to do something about it. It could be pasted with IRBMs from China and their subs long before the bombers got off the ground. Trying to defend an island that far from the US against the massive military power of China would render the men their as doomed as the defenders of Corregidor were in 1941."We USED to have bases of this size in the Philippines...even larger.

If the Chinese hit Guam, they will be signing up for total nuclear war...and they know it.

We would see an attack coming days or weeks in advance via national technical means as well as by way of human intelligence.

You mean like we did at Pearl Harbor, Or when the Chinese crossed the Yalu, or that whole Tet Offensive thing. How about 9/11 did we see that coming. When the Chinese hold an "Exercise" do you attack them first or take the risk that it might be a preliminary for a surprise attack?

And note, I never said we would not declare war. I said we would not go nuclear unless the other guy went there first. Big difference. If we went nuclear most of our major cities would go in the Chinese counter strike. How many of Obama's limousine liberals are going to escalate a war knowing that they will trade LA, San Francisco, Seattle and Hawaii for Guam? Or would they try to keep the war contained in the Western Pacific and conventional.

32
posted on 10/25/2010 5:11:07 PM PDT
by GonzoGOP
(There are millions of paranoid people in the world and they are all out to get me.)

Not only did the move to Pearl work, it worked stunningly well. Compac won the war in the Pacific from the Hawaiian bastion.

We also came within three minutes of losing the war. At the battle of Midway it was just that close. The Japanese had shot down almost every aircraft from the island and the carriers sent against them. All we had left were a hand full of dive bombers, without fighter escort. They killed three carriers in three minuets and saved the war for the US.

If the Japanese had kept even a hand full of their fighters at high altitude instead of sending them all after the torpedo bombers, if their damage control officers had not been so blitheringly incompetent as to have munitions and fuel all over the hanger decks, or if their strike on our carriers had been launched three minutes earlier we would have lost the war. The reason it was that close was because of the damage done to the US fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Maintaining a forward base is a good thing. Forward basing strategic assets where the enemy can strike them is a very bad thing. Having a base at Pearl would have been fine, if the fleet had stayed at San Diego until war was declared. That way they could move forward over a couple of days, but would still have been safe from a sneak attack.

Building a base at Guam is all and good. Most of it is there already. Basing tactical assets to protect the island, like fighters, is also a good idea. However putting the bombers and the fleet there just invites a sneak attack.

40
posted on 10/26/2010 5:09:24 AM PDT
by GonzoGOP
(There are millions of paranoid people in the world and they are all out to get me.)

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